INSIDE THIS ISSUE SJ POWER POLL .................2 PLAYER OF THE WEEK .....6
South Jersey’s No-hit queen PAGE 3
www.southjerseysportsweekly.com
Over the next two weeks, South Jersey Sports Weekly will be honoring the best athletes from each of the 10 spring sports as well as the best boys and girls teams of the season. The selections were made from a collection of high school athletes from the 20 towns and approximately two dozen schools within SJSW’s coverage area. Each of the Player of the Year and Team of the Year stories will appear in either the June 19 or June 26 issue of South Jersey Sports Weekly. All of the stories can also be read at www. southjerseysports weekly.com.
JuNE 19-25, 2019
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Meeting great expectations
Photo submitted by DOUGLAS FRANK Moorestown High School’s girls lacrosse team has a standard of excellence few programs in the state, in any sport, can match. The Quakers gathered around the program’s 24th state championship (and 17th in the last 20 seasons) earlier this month.
Moorestown’s girls lacrosse team has been one of South Jersey’s unstoppable forces since 2000, and the Class of ’19 didn’t disappoint By RYAN LAWRENCE Sports Editor
There must have been something in the drinking water fountains at Moorestown High School in the last 10 months. During the 2018-19 school year, the Quakers celebrated state championships in boys basketball, girls swimming, field hockey, boys golf, and both boys and girls lacrosse. And that run doesn’t include the programs that won sectional championships, like both tennis teams and girls soccer. “Growing up in the youth programs, it was super competitive,” said senior Del-
aney Lawler, one of a handful of athletes in the school to be a part of two state championship teams this year. “We’ve always been a very driven class, super competitive, it’s even evident in gym class and things like that. Coming into leadership positions this year, we not only were trying to get the best results on the field but also wanted to build a locker room and leave our impacts on the programs, on and off the field – that was important to our senior class.” “I think it’s a lot of natural talent,” fellow senior Kayla Frank added. “We’re a big athletic group.” Whatever it was, it was a historic school
year. And no athletic run at Moorestown would be complete without the contributions of the program that’s won state titles regularly since the turn of the century, the girls lacrosse team, South Jersey Sports Weekly’s pick for girls’ spring Team of the Year. Despite a new coaching staff for the first time in 28 years, and despite injuries that kept two All-American players out of action for a month, Moorestown’s most dominant program lived up to the lofty expectations placed upon the team year in and year out. Moorestown senior Logan Lillie made a pair of saves in the game’s final minutes while Frank, Rylee Brown and Ashley Nutt combined for eight goals as the Quakers held on for a heart-pounding 9-8 victory over Mendham in the Group 3 state championship game on June 1. It was the 24th state title in program history and the team’s 17th since 2000. please see LACROSSE, page 7